Ode on Melancholy
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
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This text is classified as a lyric poem—more specifically as an ode. As I have told you,
Keats is known as a master of this particular form. Here are two definitions that you
should understand before analyzing either this piece or “To Autumn.”
lyric poem: a short poem with one speaker (not necessarily the poet) who expresses
thought and feeling. Though it is sometimes used only for a brief poem about feeling, it is
more often applied to a poem expressing the complex evolution of thoughts and feeling,
such as the elegy, the dramatic monologue, and the ode. The emotion is or seems
personal. In classical Greece, the lyric was a poem written to be sung, accompanied by a
lyre.
ode: a lyric poem that is generally lengthy (as lyrics go), serious in subject matter,
elevated in its diction and style, and often elaborate in its stanzaic structure. The earliest
odes were encomiums—written to give public praise, usually to athletes who had been
successful in the Olympic games. The typical structure of Romantic odes can best be
described, not by traditional stanzaic patterns, but by its development of subject matter.
There are usually three elements:
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the description of a particularized outer natural scene;
an extended meditation, which the scene stimulates, and which may be focused on
a private problem or a universal situation or both;
the occurrence of an insight or vision, a resolution or decision, which signals a
return to the scene originally described, but with a new perspective created by the
intervening meditation.
The Romantic ode is frequently patterned after the odes of Roman poet Horace, the most
prolific and celebrated Roman poet of the Augustan period. The Horatian ode employed
uniform stanzas, each with the same metrical pattern, and tended generally to be more
personal, more meditative, and more restrained. Keats' "Ode to Autumn" and his “Ode to
Melancholy” are two fine examples.
An Interesting Detail or Two
The 'Ode on Melancholy' was written in 1819 and first published a year
later. Interestingly, there was once an additional stanza at the beginning, which I have
included here for your perusal. If you should draw this poem, this additional stanza will
NOT be included for your analysis.
Though you should build a bark of dead men's bones,
And rear a phantom gibbet for a mast,
Stitch creeds together for a sail, with groans
To fill it out, bloodstained and aghast;
Although your rudder be a Dragon's tail,
Long sever'd, yet still hard with agony,
Your cordage large uprootings from the skull
Of bald Medusa; certes you would fail
To find the Melancholy, whether she
Dreameth in any isle of Lethe dull.
The above stanza was removed prior to publication. The reason for this decision is
unknown; it fits the natural progression of the ode. And without it, the beginning of the
published version seems rather abrupt. (Note: The first draft of the ode is lost and the above
stanza is not included in the surviving drafts. Charles Brown and Richard Woodhouse are the source for
the cancelled stanza.)
'Ode on Melancholy' is one of the least-discussed of the odes, though I find it lyrical and
affecting; the imagery is startling and vivid. Consider 'Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be
kiss'd / By nightshade' or the closing lines - 'His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
/ And be among her cloudy trophies hung.'
It is also psychologically interesting for it clearly shows how Keats's equated pain with
pleasure (alternatively, sorrow with happiness or desire with fear.) One cannot exist
without the other. Keats writes: 'Ay, in the very temple of Delight, / Veil'd Melancholy
has her sovran shrine'. In this ode, beauty must die; joy bids adieu; pleasure turns to
poison. Keats connects each positive feeling with its melancholy end. Why? Strongly
influenced by Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Keats wished his reader to accept
melancholy as a desirable experience. It should not be avoided; rather, it should be
endured and its sufferer emerge with renewed strength and understanding.
General Comments
Circumstances are like Clouds continually gathering and bursting--while
we are laughing the seed of some trouble is put into the wide arable land
of events--while we are laughing it sprouts, it grows and suddenly bears a
poison fruit which we must pluck.
(Keats, letter to his brother and sister, spring 1819)
In "Ode on Melancholy" Keats accepts the truth he sees: joy and pain are
inseparable and to experience joy fully we must experience sadness or melancholy fully.
This ode expresses Keats's view wholeheartedly; it differs significantly from "Ode to a
Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn," in which the poet-dreamer attempts to escape
from reality into the ideal and unchanging world of the nightingale and the urn. Keats
valued intensity of emotion, intensity of thought, and intensity of experience; fulfillment
comes from living and thinking passionately. Keats does not shrink from the implication
that feeling intensely means that grief or depression may well cause anguish and torment.
Structure of "Ode on Melancholy"
This poem has a logical structure or progression. Stanza I urges us not try to escape
pain. Stanza II tells us what to do instead--embrace the transient beauty and joy of the
nature and human experience, which contain pain and death. Stanza III makes clear that
in order to experience joy, we must experience the sorrow that beauty dies and joy
evaporates.
Ours is a world of change, of flux; the "pure wine / Of happiness" (Keats's phrase)
does not exist. Melancholy has her shrine in the temple of delight precisely because
melancholy and delight are inseparable. The more intensely we feel happiness, the more
subject we are to melancholy. Unless we immerse ourselves in process (which we might
also called flux and change), we will find that we are incapable of experiencing life fully.
Analysis
Much of the effectiveness of this poem derives from the concrete1 imagery.
Throughout the poem, Keats joins elements which are ordinarily regarded as
incompatible or opposite. How is this technique appropriate for the theme of this poem?
How, in fact, does this technique illustrate that theme?
Stanza I
The poet's passionate outcry not to reject melancholy is presented negatively--"no,"
"not," "neither," "nor." Moreover, three of the first four words of the poem are negative.
The poet is using grammar to parallel his meaning and thereby reinforce it.2 The first
two words, "No, no," are both accented, emphasizing them; their forcefulness expresses
convincingly the speaker's passionate state. The degree of pain that melancholy may
cause is implied by the "remedies" or ways to avoid it, oblivion and death (i.e., Lethe and
poisons).
With the last two lines of the stanza, Keats specifies the consequences of seeking
escape from pain--a deadening ("drowning") of the soul or consciousness. The anguish is
"wakeful," because the sufferer still feels and so still has the capacity to experience joy,
though this fact will not become clear till later in the poem.
Stanza II
The possible intensity, unpredictability, and inescapability of melancholy is
suggested by "fit." Think of your associations with this word.
Since he uses a rain image, "heaven" as the source of melancholy is natural, but
doesn't heaven have other meanings or associations? Could Keats be saying something
else about melancholy here? Is there an anticipation of melancholy as a goddess in stanza
III? Is there irony?
Lines 1-4 describe the physical circumstances literally and the emotional
circumstances figuratively. The clouds are "weeping," an appropriate action for
melancholy. But is it surprising, even startling perhaps, to find that these weeping clouds
(a negative image) "foster" (or nurture) the flower? Doesn’t the reference to flowers call
up positive images? However, the flowers are"droop-headed," a phrase having a double
application. (1) On a literal level, the rain has caused them to droop. (2) On a figurative
level, "droop-headed" connotes sadness, grief. The flowers are more specifically
described in lines 5 and 7. The rain temporarily hides the view or hill (remember all these
nature images are descriptions of melancholy); however the hill is green, connoting
fertility, lushness, beauty, aliveness, and it retains these qualities whether we can see
them at a particular moment or not. The rain which cuts visibility is called a "shroud," an
obvious death reference, but the month is April, a time when nature renews itself, comes
alive after winter's barrenness and harshness. Is there a suggestion that melancholy is or
may be fruitful?
The rest of the stanza advises what to do in these circumstances: enjoy as fully as
possible the beauties of this world and thereby welcome melancholy. To "glut" sorrow is
1
concrete language identifies things perceived through the senses (touch, smell, sight, hearing, and taste),
such as soft, stench, red, loud, or bitter.
2
This is precisely the kind of idea you should explore and explain fully and clearly in your commentary.
Big points, folks!! I mean it!!!!!!!
to gorge or to experience to the fullest. The rose is beautiful, but as a "morning" rose it
lasts a short time, i.e., the experience is transitory. Similarly the rainbow produced by the
wave is beautiful and short-lived (think about how long a wave lasts) Is it relevant that
waves keep coming? The beauty of the peonies ("globed" describes their round shape) is
"wealth"; is "wealth" a positive or a negative value here?
The last four lines turn from nature to people. The imagery of wealth (her anger is
"rich") and eating intently ("feed deep") tie the natural and the human worlds and the two
divisions of the stanza together. The words "glut," "feed deep," and "Emprison" imply
passionate involvement in experience; also the eating imagery suggests that melancholy
is incorporated into, becomes part of and nourishes the individual. The food imagery is
continued in stanza III. The lover, while the object of her angry raving, also enjoys her
beauty ("peerless eyes").
Stanza III
It is important to recognize that "She" refers both to the beloved of stanza II and to
melancholy. Lines 1-3 explain the basis for the advice of stanza II; beauty dies, joy is
brief (while we are experiencing joy, it is saying goodbye to us), and pleasure is painful
("aching pleasure" is a characteristic Keatsian oxymoron). Line 4 offers a specific
example of the abstractions of lines 1-3; as the bee sips nectar (a pleasurable activity), the
nectar turns to poison. Having shown the inextricably mixed nature of life, Keats moves
on to talk about melancholy explicitly.
Where can melancholy be found? As has been implied, it is found in pleasure, in
delight. Melancholy is "Veil'd" because it is hidden from us during pleasure, which is
generally what we are aware of and are absorbed in. However there are those who see
melancholy-in-delight. They live intensely, vigorously; the language reflects their
exuberance and power, "strenuous" and "burst." Their sensitivity to life is of the highest
quality, "palate fine."
In the end of this poem, we see the reward of the "wakeful anguish of the soul" of
stanza I. The possessor of the wakeful soul shall taste melancholy's sadness (note the
synaesthesia of tasting a feeling). The change of tense, from present pleasure to future
melancholy, expresses their relationship--one is part of and inevitably follows the other.
Keats concludes that the wakeful soul will be the "trophy" or prize gained or won from
melancholy. Trophy is described as "cloudy," which has negative overtones. Does this
negative touch suggest any ambivalence on the poet's part? or is it the an absolute
statement of the inextricably mixed nature of pleasure and melancholy?
Another way of asking this question: is Keats's affirming, without any qualifications,
doubt, or hesitation, the inseparable nature of opposites in life?